The last place you look may be just around the bend as on this road at Green Lake Conference Center. Keep going.
The last place you look is last for a reason
“Why is it that when you lose something like your car keys, you always find them in the last place you look?” my colleague Sarah asked her mother recently when Sarah had misplaced her keys. “Because,” her mother replied patiently to her grown daughter, “once you find them, you stop looking.”
When Sarah told me this story, I laughed. In part because her mom’s comment was so obvious. In part because I, like Sarah, had never made that connection before.
Sarah and I were at Green Lake Conference Center, a beautiful gathering place in central Wisconsin, for a set of meetings with other colleagues. After wrapping up our morning session, we headed to the dining hall for lunch. Our other colleagues had filled up a table so Sarah and I joined another one with a sign that read “Road Scholars.”
As I sat down and made introductions, I mentioned that the name sounded familiar. “Didn’t Road Scholars used to be called something else?” I asked. “Yes,” replied a sprite woman to my right. “Elderhostel.” “Oh,” I quipped, “the new name makes more sense since none of you seem either elderly or hostile!” I was in.
Lost and found
Sarah asked about their conference and found out it was a writing workshop. Their theme? “Lost and found.” I looked at Sarah. She just smiled. We spent the next twenty minutes learning about their writing, how they were enjoying it and how long they’d been coming there. One woman said this was her 23rd year attending the event. She noted how she loved the learning, the memories and mostly, the people she met, some old friends, some new acquaintances. “Come back another two years and you get a gold watch,” Sarah said. They all laughed and I could understand why someone would want to keep returning to such a welcoming place and group.
As these Road Scholars headed back to their writing, I got to thinking about Sarah’s earlier comment and how true it is. We do stop looking for things when we find them whether those are keys, people or even dreams.
The problem is, with the exception of the car keys, too often we give up looking too soon. We treat some things like our dreams or even our callings as if they were car keys, tangible, finite objects that we can grasp. And thus we stop looking when we think we’ve found them.
Why the last place you look shouldn’t be the last place you look
But what if there is more? What if we settle for just part of what is there and stop looking too soon? Artists and craftspeople will tell you that 50% of your effort on a project can get you 90% of the way there. But that last 10%? That’s where the difference is made between what is good and what is great. That is where you run the risk of ruining all you’ve done before because that last 10% requires so much additional effort and skill. So what do many of us do? We give up at 90%. We stop looking or trying.
When we stop pursuing our dreams or working through that last 10%, we end up wondering why life feels OK, but not entirely satisfying. Deep down we sense that we’re settling for mediocrity but we’re not really sure why. We don’t realize that we’ve stopped looking.
This isn’t about perfectionism so much as pursuit and relentless curiosity. It’s about applying the explorer’s need to know what lies beyond the next rise to the areas of our lives that matter most, our passions, dreams and creative interests. It reminds me of the phrase from the movie, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” where the father, played by Tom Hanks, shows his son the typo in the newspaper and reveals it as a clue, a mandate actually, to follow: “notstop looking.”
Let’s make it personal
How about for you? What has been lost or maybe just pushed aside in your life? Where have you stopped looking? Where do you need to pursue that last 10% to find what truly matters or to be truly found?
Shortly before the group of Road Scholars left, one woman mentioned that she had come here with her husband who is a writer. They had signed up for another workshop/conference but it fell through so she tagged along on this one. Before she arrived, she didn’t see herself as a writer. Now? Everything had changed. She loved the workshop and planned on coming back. “For another 20 years or so like this other person?” Sarah asked her.
“In 20 years, I’ll be 100,” she replied. But then, with a sly smile she added, “But you never know.”
Here clearly, was someone who was not going to stop looking.
